//------------------------------// // 23-1: Going somewhere? // Story: Imbalanced: Legacy of Light // by Nameless Narrator //------------------------------// The dim interior of the slaver ship rocked and creaked. Magpie had lost his sense of time three periods of sleep ago, opting to rest to recover from the ambush by Desert Shade and her group in the Badlands. Everything had gone completely wrong so quickly. One moment, he’d been observing Desert Shade’s group setting up tents to wait for Gem, Prominence, and Harriet’s return from the old changeling hive, and not even five minutes later, he’d been defending himself and Pack Rat from four attackers along with a mage. The only thing warming Magpie now was that despite how terribly he’d been outmatched, he’d left the enemy griffon with a shattered kneecap which will definitely hurt forever on those cold winter days, magic healing or not. But that had been then and this was now. The bottom deck of the ship was filled with nineteen cages, one for each prisoner, a short way from one another. Too far for any two prisoners to use their legs together for anything. At the moment, Magpie couldn’t see any hole in the security of the ship other than the zebra guard checkups every half an hour. He’d had enough time to count the interval.   Zebra slavers. Desert Shade had sold them to ponies who had met her short way east from the Badlands, followed by a heavily guarded caravan trip to the coast. Come to think of it, strangely heavily guarded for only several prisoners. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to listen to any conversations between Desert Shade and the slaver leader to make an educated guess on the nature of the situation. The slavers had a secret port on the coast, a little piece of civilization carved out of the corrupted landscape, where they had loaded them onto this ship along with the other captives of rather varied origins. Griffons, ponies of all kinds, even a young minotaur sitting in a reinforced cage in the corner. If there was a good thing about the situation, it was that their group was loaded on the ship at the same time, so they weren’t far from each other, just out of reach, though. There was the possibility of communication… or there eventually would be one, because right now, things weren’t great, to say the least. Gem had been unconscious since the hive. Whatever had Desert Shade done to her knocked her out good. Still, she was breathing and her state looked more like deep sleep than a coma caused by heavy brain damage. Harriet, the poor girl, had woken up a few times, but always just cried herself to sleep again, ignoring anyone and anything around her. Even in the port, she’d just wordlessly followed anything anyone had told her, always looking at the ground. And those two were the ones in good shape. Prominence had been fine all the way to the ship, but soon after they’d left the port, she just collapsed, groaning and moaning, completely unable to interact with her surroundings. It was either the worst case of seasickness Magpie had ever even heard of, or there was something more at play. Either way, the zebras had checked up on her and found nothing wrong. Pack Rat had been somewhat alright early as well, but in his case Magpie had known that without Gem to help him through his cold turkey, it was going to get worse, and it was bad now. He was gasping for breath, sometimes babbling something about spiders, and rubbing himself all over, but most of the time he was just shaking and sweating. Funnily enough, he was the only one who had exchanged at least some words with the griffon who had tried to take the addict’s mind off of things on a regular basis. Last... last there was the batpony whom the slavers had found in the hive near death with a massive slash wound in his chest. He hadn’t woken up either, and was shaking in his sleep even now, occasionally mumbling ‘No, no!’.  In short, things were grim. Not the worst situation Magpie had ever been in, but he would easily consider this for the top five, maybe top three. The question was what could he do right now, really? His… everything had finally stopped hurting when he’d woken up last time, so now he finally had the opportunity to think clearly. After some thought, he concluded that he couldn’t do much for Prominence, Pack Rat, or the batpony. Gem, though, was a little different case. He waited for the zebra guard to do his regular rounds, and hissed at him: “Hey, HEY!” “What do you want, slave?” asked the striped slaver in a deep voice with a heavy accent. “Gem really shouldn’t be unconscious for this long,” Magpie dropped the name to show that he knew the changeling mare, “I think something is wrong.” “Our ship doctor said she didn’t look hurt in any way.” “No shit, Sherclop, but how many changelings has he treated? I’ve been travelling with that mare, and this isn’t normal.” “That means, slave, that he can’t do anything further to help.” “I might,” Magpie nodded to Gem, “She might just be hungry and exhausted. If you know anything about changelings, then you know that they feed on love or lust. Just roll her closer to me, and I could… I don’t know… hug her or something. The contact might help.” “Yeeeeah, nice try, but how about no?” the zebra waves his foreleg around, “This is a ship, not a prison. It’s either split cages, or I can chain you to the wall.” “Look, is it worth a dead changeling? Something you can’t sell?” Magpie tilted his head, “Besides, she has the suppressor on, so she can’t do anything.” “And then I push you to her, you take it off, and we have to deal with an angry shapeshifter. No, thank you.” “Then fucking chain my forelegs together or something, just give me the option to touch her,” Magpie pressed on, his eyes suddenly noticing a small detail on Gem’s carapace which might help his attempt at persuasion, “I can take it, but she clearly can’t. Look!” he pointed at a small crack in Gem’s armor, “Her carapace is flaking off. That is a clear sign of hunger.” Of course, he had no idea whether the small amount of damage had been caused by the fight in the hive, was an old crack, or whether he’d been accidentally right. “I’ll fill a changeling like her up if you know what I mean,” laughs the zebra, adding a thrust of his hips to complete the sleazy image. “Up to you if you want to screw a corpse,” Magpie scowled at him, “A corpse that doesn’t bring you moneyyyyy,” he added a lot of emphasis on the final word. “I’ll see what I can do,” the zebra finished his rounds, and left. Magpie sat down, crossed his hind legs, and started counting. The guard arrived early, which meant that someone up there had to come to some sort of conclusion. “Work your magic, Romecolt,” the zebra grinned at Magpie while pushing his cage to Gem’s, “Warm her up for me, and I’ll do the rest.” Surprisingly, he didn’t even use any manacles or anything to ensure that Magpie wouldn’t try to escape, and left afterwards. Step one was done. Would it help? Maybe, maybe not. Did Magpie have any better ideas? Certainly not. Carefully, he just pushed his foreleg between the two sets of bars, and started stroking Gem’s mane. To his surprise, Gem’s ear twitched after his third careful stroke, and he found himself looking into the shifting colors of her eyes. “Sorry,” he withdrew his foreleg, “I thought you were still hurt, so I persuaded the guard to allow me some contact.” “I didn’t mind, really,” she whispered, “You’re delicious in a way.” “I’ll take it as a compliment and not something to make my fur stand on edge,” chuckled the griffon, but didn’t resume the intimate contact. Gem sighed, disappointed, sat up, and looked around, examining the situation. “How did you manage to make them put our cages together?” she asked after quickly figuring out the pattern of the separated prisoners. Magpie scratched his head. “Ehhh, I told the guard you were likely hungry and might wake up after some contact with a close one. I know I’m not much, and I know you’d have preferred Prominence, but I was the only one in a position to help.” The corner of Gem’s mouth curled up, and she reached into Magpie’s cage to run her hoof up and down his foreleg, which made him lean backwards, although without moving his leg. The normally distant and careful griffon was delicious in his own way, she hadn’t been lying about that. “Good thinking. I was in semi-hibernation to avoid wasting energy,” she explained, “It still costs something, unlike total hibernation, but allows me to think about what happened.” “Well, before you congratulate me - the plan of feeding you kind of maybe sort of gave the zebra guard an idea that he would, let’s say, feed you with lust later. I talked him out of having his way with you while you were unconscious or hibernating as you said.” “No plan can be perfect,” Gem sighed, “And what’s supposed to happen after I come back from being ravaged by rough, muscular, and almost comically well-endowed zebra?” “I… didn’t think so far ahead,” Magpie admitted, “I was just worried you were hurt and getting worse.” “See? A girl’s got it all - a well-intentioned, sweet protector and a zebra ruffian to play with.” “I’m pretty sure most guys would prefer to be the well-intentioned protectors to be, ehm, played with, and the zebra to stay as far away from their relationship as possible.” “Neat, we’re in a relationship now,” Gem winked at Magpie. “I didn’t say that, and you don’t want that,” the griffon looked away, “And speaking of ships, you’d better start thinking about how to get out of this one, because the voyage can’t last forever, and some slaver port or base will be much better protected than this. I’m just the muscle you hired to bash the bad guys’ skulls in.” “If Promi is up, we should be-” Gem stopped as Magpie pointed to the groaning and moaning white mess that was the unicorn mare, “Damn it, right… sea.” “Is she seasick?” “No, at least not in the way you think. She’s… umm… broadly speaking, she’s a Corrupted, and they normally can’t cross the sea at all.” “Corrupted?” Magpie raised an eyebrow, “But she doesn’t look tainted at all, and she can use magic,” Gem’s raised hoof stopped the incoming torrent of questions. “I can’t tell you more without her permission. That’s just the reason why she’s like this,” Gem looked at the others, “And I assume Packy’s not all there either.” “I’ll be… alright,” the earthpony croaked through chattering teeth. In his state, it was about fifty percent chance that he was talking to himself rather than answering any of Gem’s concerns. “You will, I’ll make sure of it,” Gem smiled at him, “What about Harriet?” “She’s… not in a good state,” Magpie tapped his head, “She just keeps crying and sleeping.” “Can’t blame her,” Gem frowned, “I’ve been adventuring for centuries, and I’m still not sure how to get out of this safely.” “If you figure something out and need a meat shield,” Magpie lay down, “let me know, and I’ll be right there.” Gem shook her head, looking at the griffon who closed his eyes. She grabbed his foreleg. “We’ll see about that,” she said, “Hold my hoof, snack bird.” “Mhm.”